Punjab: Only 2 of 8 turncoats in Punjab won Lok Sabha elections

Chandigarh, Jun 5 (PTI) Only two of the eight party-hoppers who had switched sides in the last over couple of months could secure victory on the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab.

The two victorious turncoats are AAP's Raj Kumar Chabbewal and Congress party's Dharamvira Gandhi.

Chabbewal, who was the deputy leader of opposition in the assembly, had joined the AAP in March this year. And later he was fielded from the Hoshiarpur seat. He defeated Congress party's Yamini Gomar from the Hoshiarpur constituency.

Gandhi, a former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP, joined the Congress in April. He trounced AAP's Balbir Singh by a margin of over 14,000 votes from the Patiala constituency.

After quitting the AAP in 2016, Gandhi had formed his own political outfit Nawan Punjab Party, which he merged with the Congress when he joined it.

The party-hoppers, who finished second in the elections, were BJP's Sushil Rinku, Ravneet Singh Bittu and AAP's Gurpreet Singh GP.

Rinku, who contested from Jalandhar, had joined the BJP after quitting the AAP. Last year ahead of the Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypolls, he had quit the Congress to join the AAP.

Bittu, a three-time MP of the Congress, joined the BJP after quitting the grand old party in March. He faced defeat from the Ludhiana seat.

Gurpreet Singh GP, former Congress MLA, joined the AAP before the Lok Sabha polls.

Four-time MP Preneet Kaur left the Congress to join the BJP. However, she was defeated from her pocket borough Patiala.

Other turncoats who could not win the election included AAP's Pawan Kumar Tinu and Shiromani Akali Dal's Mohinder Singh Kaypee.

Meanwhile, of the 13 MPs in Punjab, eight are first-time MPs.

They are AAP's Malvinder Singh Kang (Anandpur Sahib), Raj Kumar Chabbewal (Hoshiarpur), Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer (Sangrur), Congress party's Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa (Gurdaspur), Charanjit Singh Channi (Jalandhar), Amrinder Singh Raja Warring (Ludhiana) and Independents Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa (Faridkot) and Amritpal Singh (Khadoor Sahib).

Apart from this, only a single woman from Punjab made it to Parliament in the Lok Sabha polls. Shiromani Akali Dal's Harsimrat Kaur Badal won from the Bathinda parliamentary constituency.

Among 328 candidates, 26 women were in the fray.

The Congress dealt a body blow to the ruling AAP and the opposition BJP and SAD, winning seven of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in the high-stakes polls in Punjab even as two Independents registered a surprise victory.

While the Aam Aadmi Party clinched three seats, the Sukhbir Singh Badal-led Shiromani Akali Dal could win only one seat and the BJP drew a blank in the border state. PTI CHS VSD KSS KSS